Looks great! Can't wait to read more.
Brotherdan's New Blog
by brotherdan 24 Replies latest jw friends
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pirata
Brotherdan, I will enjoy reading your blog. I noticed you used the word "honest hearted". Is that a left-over JW catch-phrase, or did Russell use that term? I personally think that term is very "loaded language" (ie. if you do not agree with me, then your heart is not honest).
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ziddina
"Well, Stephen, if I've gotta stay "in" for a bit, I'm going to be the most educated person in the field of JW history ever. I'm going to know how and why things went down like they did. ..."
(heh, heh.... This oughtta be gooooood....)
Good,, as in - what you'll find out, what you'll share with us, what you'll be able to see about current theology within the Watchtower Society, and - wishful thinking here - which discoveries you'll be able to share with active Jehovah's Witnesses - like they'd actually listen...
Well, hopefully a few will listen...
Good for you!!
Zid
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Mad Sweeney
Way to go, Dan!
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neverendingjourney
Here's to hoping you (or anyone for that matter) is able to succeed in this endeavor. There is a lack of good, dependable information out there on the early history of the Watchtower movement and its leaders. I'd love to read some good biographies about Russell and Rutherford, but I haven't really found any. I'd also like to read a condensed, yet thorough summary of the movement's beliefs and the evolution of same, but I haven't found that either. Most of the material out there, with the notable exception of Ray Franz's works, is quite biased one way or another.
I've come to believe that our former religion is really of interest to mainly two groups of people: JWs and XJWs. JWs, of course, get their history strictly from WT sources. As far as XJWs, most just drift away and don't bother spending too much time really understanding the movement they were a part of. They're either just happy to be free or retain a semblance of an it's-still-the-truth-and-I-might-go-back-one-day mentality. Other XJWs spend a few months (years?) learning about JWism, but eventually most of us get bored or tired of rehashing the same material over and over and decide to leave the past behind. Either way, there doesn't appear to be much of a market for these sorts of materials. I have no idea how many books Ray Franz sold, but I'd imagine his books (being "must reads" for XJWs) represent the "ceiling" of how well material about JWism can perform commercially, which is probably not very well at all. I don't think Ray ever got rich off of his books.
I suppose there is probably some interest in academia, but JWs are notoriously unwilling to cooperate in any way with academic studies of their religion, so maybe any academics or grad students attempting to study JWism simply give up and decide to focus their efforts on other subjects. After all, it's not like JWism is anything more than a slight curiosity to the vast majority of the public, a minor footnote in the history of modern life.